The Gear Train Slips off the Track

The Gear Train Slips off the Track

Wild is has been slowly improving his Boomkin DPS on the Isle. He no longer dies every time he tackles an elite mob. His first elite kill was a flightless, level 90 elite bird. That kill was pure joy. Wild later proved he could kill the bison like elites as well. His attempts on the elite snakes and tigers have not yet yielded a kill, but Wild came within 2.4% of killing one of the tigers. Overall, Wild has thirteen elite kills. Wild needs to get to twenty to complete a quest.

Part of Wild's issue with the elites is that moonkin spell rotation is based primarily on two spells, wrath and starfire, which must be used during the proper "eclipse" to maximize the damage done. Starfire is a long cast spell and easily interrupted. If Wild uses wrath instead of starfire during the wrong eclipse, his damage dealing falls off considerably. It's a little frustrating, but that's how moonkin combat works. Lots of entangling roots help, but only a little. These elites all seem to have burst damage, too, which is used near the end of a fight. Wild, seeing an elite nearly dead, hangs in there, blasting away with wrath or starfire and ignoring his own health. Then comes the last gasp burst from the elite, and it's Wild that dies instead. He's getter better, as the thirteen elite kills show.

Wild also had the good fortune of being at the right place at the right time. A rare elite, named Tsava'ka (or something like that), spawned at a cave Wild happened to be near. Trade channel chatter burst open with the news, and players began running toward the spawn. There were five of us already in range of the elite, and we all starting pounding it. Rare elites, I was told, can be tagged without having to be in a group. Wild proved that to be true. When Tsava'ka died (he went down pretty fast), Wild received credit for the kill. Since that kill Wild has gotten two more rare elite kills. The Dread Ship Vazuvious was parked in the shallows near the horde camp. Wild was able hit it with a couple of moonfires before the ship sank, although he nearly died in the fires that roared on the surface of the water. Another elite turned up a day later, the Emerald Gander, which Wild also helped kill.

The gear train seems to have ended, though. The weekend was a complete bust for both Wild and Fist, both stuck at i475. Not a single piece of gear dropped. Even finding a treasure chest has been difficult. Wild and/or Fist has been on at all hours of the day and night and the Timeless Isle is still always overwhelmed with players.

Fist was beset with another kind of indignity. According to the WoW Armory, Fist has no weapons. Her pair of maces are gone, and her gear score is an unappealing i416 instead of the i475 it should be. Fortunately, it's a cosmetic problem. The maces are there when she is in game, and they seem to be working as they are supposed to. The problem boils down to a bug in the Armory program. Blizzard "is aware of the issue" but has no estimate on when, or if, it might be fixed.